Part of the game?
It could very well be.
“Who…who are you?” I managed to ask, knives raised still. There was no clock on the cat that I could see. It wasn’t big, but it was round, and its fur was fluffy, and there were numbers moving on it when it moved.
Of course, it could have been a trick of the shadows.
“Why, the Cheshire—who else?” it spoke again, clearly through sharp, grinning teeth, and sat there on its hind legs in front of me, wrapping its tail all around its body. I could have sworn that it hadn’t been long enough for that a second ago, but my eyes insisted that now it was.
“What’s a Cheshire?”
I doubted I’d heard the name before—or anyone mentioning a grinning, talking cat who walked down trees backward.
Then the cat stood up. “Who,you mean,who—and the Cheshire is I.” When it started walking, it did so backward again. Two paws back, two toward my right.
Curiouser and curiouser.
“Are you part of the game?” I wondered again because my mind was still trying to make this make sense.
“A game? I do solovegames!” it said, continuing to walkbackward, and I continued to move in a circle to have it in my line of vision at all times.
“Where do you come from, then?” If he wasn’t a part of the trials, did he maybe live in this forest? Though the forest was inside the Labyrinth in Neverwhen, and I doubted animals would be allowed to live here.
But perhaps talking, grinning cats were an exception?
“From Time, the wretched old bastard, of course,” it said, and it walked backward so naturally. Just like one walked forward.
It was considered blasphemy to speak that way about Time, but I couldn’t bring myself to remind him of that just now. Instead, I asked. “And…and why are you here?”
Such soft looking fur. Fluffy. Withnumbersappearing and hiding underneath longer strands with every step it took.
“I’malwayshere—hereis the only place to live when a wretched old bastard like Time casts you out. Glitches are my home.”
“I don’t…I don’t understand.”
“Backward,” the Cheshire said. “I live backward,O-ra.And you do now, too. How curious.” It took two steps backward, then sat and looked up at me again, the clockbeast right at its side yet it pretended it couldn’t even tell the carcass was there. “Are you a little lost?”
“I—”
“Wait—do not tell me.” Its head snapped back suddenly, and it looked at the forest like it could see something in the darkness. “Ah.”The voicepopped in my headlike its laughter did, and every inch of my skin rose in goose bumps. “You’renotlost, then. The forest wandered off without asking your permission first. It does that sometimes, yes.”
My eyes closed—only for a second. I breathed deeply, called order in my mind.
A trial. It’s all part of the trial…
“What do you mean, you live backward?Whatare you doing here?” I asked—for the last time before I walked away. Before I found whatever end this game had and told the queen and those cheering buffoons that there wasnoway to unwin this trial—the beasts would eat us all if we brought them back to life!
“I mean your tomorrow is my history. Pay attention,O-ra.” The way he said my name was wrong, so wrong. “Backward is such a lovely direction, don’t you think? What are your impressions so far?”
My mouth opened but no word left me yet. The Cheshire was back in front of the tree where it had appeared, and now it sat down again and watched me. Waited.
“I-I-I…” Again and again, I shook my head. “It’s impossible,” I ended up saying. “They want us to unwin the Turning Trials, and it’s impossible. I tried unkilling this clockbeast, and it was very much interested in killingme.I can’t outrun it—its legs are too long.Impossible.”
“As is everything,” the Cheshire said—but it wasn’t.
“Nothingis impossible.” And everyone knew this.
“That is what I said,” the cat claimed—how rude.“To answer your other question, I only came to remember what you will forget,O-ra.”
